Woodland, Pioneer track athletes heat up at Woody Wilson Invitational

DAVIS -- As the weather heats up in Yolo County, so are the athletes from the Woodland High track and field team.

Several Wolves set personal bests at the Woody Wilson Invitational at Toomey Field on the UC Davis campus on Friday as the temperature approached the high 80s.

Aric Strohmeyer, Melissa Mahoney, Daniel Aguirre and Doug Coman all set personal bests coming out of blocks, electronically timed. In the 400-meter dash, Coman took 15th (51.43) and Aguirre finished in 16th (51.47).

"It was a PR, but I could have done better," Coman said. "I tightened up at the end."

He has high goals as the season continues.

"I need to break 50 (seconds in the 400)," Coman said. "That's not really a goal, that's what I have to do."

Half of last year's Woodland 4x400 relay team graduated last year, but Coman and Aguirre are now teamed up with Strohmeyer and Matthew Clavelli. After last year's group fell one spot short of qualifying for the CIF State Meet, Coman thinks the current group can get it done.

Strohmeyer finished the 800 with a time of 1:59.63. He finished third in his heat, but his overall results weren't available at deadline. Results for the 4x400 and other late events were also unavailable by deadline.

Mahoney finished 15th in the 400 with a time of 60.90.

Senior Kenny Coleman didn't set a personal best, but he did manage to turn around his day. He struggled in the discus throw, taking 13th place at 97-7. But later in the day he broke the 50-foot mark in the shot put for only the second time in his life with a throw of 50-6 1/2 to take sixth place.

"I had a pretty bad day in disc, so I had to get over that to throw well in shot," he said.

Both Coleman and Coman said that the heat actually helped their performances because they stayed loose. Woodland High coach Chuck Bruns was happy with how his team dealt with the high temperatures.

"The weather changed dramatically and it can psychologically effect some of the athletes, but they responded to the challenge," he said.

The temperature in Woodland on Wednesday only reached 73. The high in Davis on Friday was 88.

Other results for the Wolves that were available at deadline include Jamie Wright's 19th-place finish in 100-meter hurdles at 17.50 and Blayne Shoffit took 21st in the 100-meter dash at 13.27.

The Wolves were scheduled to compete in the Halden Invitational back in Davis today, but Bruns decided to pull his team out of the meet to focus on a dual meet with River Valley on Monday.

"(The Falcons) are a team that's loaded with talent and we have to have our A-game to defend our (Tri-County Conference) title that we've won four times," Bruns said.

While Woodland is skipping the Halden Invitational, Pioneer is sending its full team. Junior Ashton Kershner was the only Patriots representative at the Woody Wilson Invitational. She took eighth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.79.

"I've done better, but I'm happy with my time," Kershner said.

Pioneer coach Michael Hochderffer said Kershner has been dealing with shin splints, but he hopes she will be OK to compete today. Like the Wolves, Pioneer has two TCC dual meets next week because of rainouts earlier in the season.

"We have a lot of meets coming up, so hopefully the kids are in good shape," he said.